A Valentine For Marie

First shown on January 30, 1967, FOR LIFE AGAINST THE WAR was an open-call, collective statement from American independent filmmakers disparate in style and sensibility but united by their opposition to the Vietnam War. Part of the protest festival Week of the Angry Arts, the epic compilation film incorporated minute-long segments which were sent from many corners of the country, spliced together and projected. The original presentation of the works was more of an open forum with no curation or selection, and in 2000 Anthology Film Archives preserved a print featuring around 40 films from over 60 submissions.

Andy Warhol's Silver Flotations is a portrait of Warhol's famous installation of floating silver helium-filled balloons at the Leo Castelli Gallery in 1966. Willard Maas's lyrical "film poem" is the only visual document of this seminal exhibition.

"By 1967, Menken had become interested in the work of Fluxus artist Robert Watts and made a short animation piece, Watts with EGGS, in which she animates his chrome-casted Box of Eggs. The film opens with lights reflected in the eggs (of course), then, through single framing, pixilates a man's hand arranging eggs in different patterns. The hands (those of John Hawkins) fill the box back up with eggs. Next, the eggs do the same routine, but more magically, more serenely, without the assistance of the hands. Menken also introduces a string and a feather duster into animated action, so that the eggs, one by one, seem to be coming directly out of the duster (objects infect objects). By the end, the eggs are magically back in their box." Melissa Ragona

An attempt to reproduce some visual hallucinations while on a trip (a number of years ago), done in the major portion with clay animation. On the average, it took one hour to shoot one-half second's viewing time. I felt that clay was the best medium to demonstrate what one might see under the drug experience. –J. H.

Photography: Willard Maas and John Hawkins. "Looking down instead of around, while walking, finding the magic patterns in the pavements of a city."--John Hawkins